


Port and Sympathy

by The_Plaid_Slytherin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drinking & Talking, Kissing, M/M, Post-Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 10:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12408711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/pseuds/The_Plaid_Slytherin
Summary: Horace finds companionship in a most unexpected place.





	Port and Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Filigranka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/gifts).



> I was so happy to see this pairing requested! I hope you like this. :)

Horace stood in the entry to the Hog’s Head, eyeing the battered sign with some trepidation. It was an unsavory place, really, beneath the notice of his sort. Not that Horace considered himself snobbish or the like. He was certainly not as bad as his mother, who would not have tolerated any less than a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, even to come round for tea. 

She would not have held stock with the Dumbledores, even before Percival’s fall from grace. And even after Albus had distinguished himself, she had never understood Horace’s admiration. She had never understood Horace’s admiration for any of his distinguished individuals, not when it had no basis in blood. 

The Hog’s Head was another thing entirely. Horace was not used to the world of open crime, and he was quite certain he would not be welcomed by its denizens either. He was equally certain however, that there was no other place he could safely transact the business he had come on.

After all, legitimate places of business would ask too many questions about how he had come to acquire such a large supply of Acromantula venom. 

He pulled the door open.

The bar was empty, which didn't surprise Horace for eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning. He nearly turned right around for the warmth and comfort of the Three Broomsticks when a voice came out of the back.

"I'm here, so don't be getting any idea about leaving. Just not as fast as I used to be."

Horace, who also was not as fast as he used to be, remained. He did not want to be perceived as rude, after all. This was perhaps his most obvious mistake.

Presently, Aberforth Dumbledore stepped out of the back, wiping his hands on a filthy towel. "Oh, it's you," he said.

Horace did not think he rated an _oh, it's you_. He only remembered having spoken to Aberforth a handful of times in his life. "Yes," he said, not bothering to hide his offense. "It is I." 

Aberforth made a swipe at the bar with his towel. "Come for a drink?"

Horace hadn't intended to—he had wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible—but he now realized he could not refuse. He couldn't very well ask Aberforth for a favor without giving anything in return, and after all, business seemed to be rather slow.

"A Butterbeer, if you have it."

Aberforth made deprecating noise under his breath and bent to retrieve a very dusty bottle from beneath the counter. He wiped it off with the selfsame towel and slid it down the bar toward Horace. A smudged glass followed shortly. Horace studied it and, upon noting an unidentifiable grime on the bottom, uncapped the bottle and drank directly from it.

"You might as well tell me why you're here. Make it easier on the both of us."

Horace heartily agreed. "I have a favor to ask of you."

"This ought to be good."

Horace sought for a way in which to phrase this delicately. How did Albus Dumbledore's brother, of all people, come to be associating with such people, in such an unsavory place as this? "Something has come into my possession which I would like to sell, and I have reason to believe your clientele would be interested."

"My clientele," Aberforth muttered. "Illegal, is it?"

"Not precisely, no."

"Good. Because I have no truck with anything that'll bring the Aurors. Like to keep a low profile."

"Naturally." Horace felt himself falling back into familiar congeniality. Perhaps he could convince Aberforth to go along with it. "But as I said, it really isn't strictly illegal."

"You might as well come out and say it, rather than yammering on." 

"A large quantity of Acromantula venom has come into my possession, and I would like to find a buyer."

Aberforth nodded, as though he was not in the least surprised. "Get it after the battle, did you? I didn't even know those things could be killed. I thought they all fled back into the forest."

"They probably did," Horace allowed. "This one died the year before." 

"Lucky find?"

"You might say that." 

Aberforth made another snorting noise. _How unlike Albus he is_ , Horace thought, not for the first time in this encounter. "Hagrid, then?"

"How did you know?"

"He's in here all the time shooting his mouth off over one of another of his little pets. And my brother in his infinite wisdom let him keep everything short of a dragon up there at the school."

"While I will own that it isn't exactly safe, I can't blame Albus for having a soft spot for the boy."

"Of course you can't." Aberforth didn't elaborate on this. Horace could not help but feel vaguely insulted. After all, _he_ didn't like having dangerous beasts around a school full of children. And he suddenly found he could not exactly identify why Albus should turn a blind eye to it either. 

"Well," Horace prompted. "Do you know anyone who might be in the market for a large quantity of Acromantula venom?"

"I might. Come back next week. Wednesday night. Nine o'clock. I might have something by then."

Horace left feeling extremely odd, as though Aberforth had somehow got the better of him.

**

Wednesday night saw the Hog's Head comparatively busy when measured against Saturday morning. Horace actually had to wait to be served at the bar, feeling increasingly self-conscious about his continued presence in the establishment. It really wasn't his sort of place at all, and he was beginning to worry that he would be seen by someone he knew. Not that anyone he knew would be seen in a place like this.

"Well," Aberforth said, once his last customer had been dealt with. "Did you bring it?"

"I'm not about to walk around with the lot of it." Horace glanced over his shoulder to make sure he had not been overheard. 

Aberforth narrowed blue eyes so like Albus' at him as though Horace was personally inconveniencing him. "I'm not going to facilitate transfer of illegal goods."

"And I'm telling you it's not—"

"Hush!" Aberforth looked about the common room. "Your contact's there by the fire." 

Horace glanced over to the chair by the fire where there sat a little wizard wrapped in a traveling cloak. He didn't look too terribly objectionable. 

"What do I do?" he asked Aberforth.

"He's expecting you. Go on over and tell him who you are."

Horace took his drink and sat down across from the man. A pair of eyes peered out at him from beneath the cloak.

"How much of it have you got?"

Horace told him. There was no change in expression. Quickly and quietly, they agreed on a price and where Horace was to bring the venom, one vial per month. He didn't think all this subterfuge was _strictly_ necessary, but he supposed it was only fair when he had gone to such extreme lengths to find a buyer. After the little wizard left, Horace remained by the fire, sipping his glass of brandy, which was nicer stuff than he would have expected Aberforth to have. A pleasant sense of comfort washed over him, and he nearly forgot where he was. 

"Well? Are you going to stay here all night?" The next thing he knew, Aberforth was standing in front of him, gripping a broom.

"Oh. I'm sorry." Horace blinked sleep from his eyes.

"Get out. Snoring's bad for business."

Horace hauled himself out of the chair. "I think I know what's bad for business." 

Aberforth narrowed his eyes. "You want a nice, shiny, friendly pub, you know where the Three Broomsticks is."

"I certainly do." Horace got his cloak and headed for the door. "I do want to thank you," he said, not wanting to leave on a rude note. "I wouldn't have found a buyer without you. Let me do something for you."

"I don't need any favors." 

Horace stroked his mustache thoughtfully. "Really, let me get you something. As a token of my appreciation."

"I'm telling you I don't need anything other than for you to go back up to your castle and leave me alone. I'm not Albus. You can't ply me with drink and sweets."

Horace really ought to have gone just then. There was just no reasoning with some people. But he could not stand there and hear a dead man be insulted, by his own brother no less. "Now see here, there's no reason to speak that way. Just because—"

"Just because what?" 

"Well, because—Albus… well, he was Albus."

Aberforth raised an eyebrow. "And what does that mean exactly?"

"Well, Albus, he—he was so successful, so many friends, everyone liked him." Aberforth watched him impassively. "I can only imagine how you must have felt compared to him." Then, he added, "I'm sorry." 

"Oh, are you?" Aberforth reached into his robes and pulled out his wand. Horace tensed briefly, but Aberforth jammed it at the door, causing it to spring open as though blown by the October wind. "Get out."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"Get out," Aberforth repeated. "Go on back up to your cozy school and mope about Albus some more. I'm sure the Headmistress would join you."

Horace was back to feeling offended rather than apologetic. "I will go back, if that's how it is."

"That's how it is."

Horace had barely crossed the threshold before the door had slammed behind him. He took one glance backward through the grimy window, just in time to see Aberforth go behind the bar and take out a bottle of brandy. He poured a glass and reached down to scratch behind the ears of the goat that was butting against his knees. Then he spotted Horace and an icy scowl hurried him on his way.

**

Months passed without Horace giving any thought to Aberforth. His Hogsmeade weekends were spent holding court in the Three Broomsticks, dispensing advice to his favorites who might have needed it. His evenings which weren't spent with the Slug Club were spent in comfortable solitude with a glass of sherry, some crystallized pineapple, and an interesting book.

As the weeks passed, however, he found his melancholy growing as Christmas grew nearer. Christmas always put him in mind of Albus. There had been a man who had known how to celebrate Christmas. Even though it had been years since they'd last partaken in the tradition, it still felt wrong to be having Christmas Eve at Hogwarts and not be taking a bottle up to Albus' office. 

He had dithered over this plan for some days, but with no students from Slytherin remaining at school for the holiday and his own party already finished, he was feeling a bit lonely. He would eat Christmas dinner in the great hall, of course, and spend Christmas night with the staff, but Christmas Eve had been his and Albus'. Last year, there hadn't been much Christmas at all, so this was really the first year to miss him.

It was only on a whim that he started down to the village with a bottle of mead. With any luck, this one would not be poisoned. A light snow was beginning to fall, but Horace felt the inner warmth of a pleasant undertaking. 

He was not expecting the bar to be shut and he stood on the doorstep, unsure of what to do. Perhaps he had been wrong and Aberforth had plans. But the light behind the bar and the figure cleaning glasses—so he _did_ clean them—disabused him of that notion.

He knocked. Aberforth seemed not to have heard. Horace knocked harder. Aberforth looked up with a start and scowled. Then, with great reluctance, he straightened up, came out from behind the bar, and approached the door with excruciating slowness. 

"What do you want? Something else illegal to sell?"

"I'm telling you it's not illegal in Great Britain to possess—"

Aberforth cut him off with a sigh. "Come in." He opened the door wide enough for Horace to pass through, and then shut it again. "What really brings you here?"

"It's Christmas," Horace said, because he got the impression that Aberforth might have forgotten. "I thought you might be lonely." 

Aberforth remained silent, but he didn't deny it. "Well, I won't pass up a free drink. Come on." 

They sat in front of the fire and Aberforth produced two glasses—two _clean_ glasses, Horace was pleased to note. 

"Happy Christmas," Horace said, pouring the mead.

"Happy Christmas," Aberforth muttered. 

Horace waited tensely for some remark but Aberforth was sipping slowly. It seemed it would be left to him to speak first. "I do want to say I'm sorry. The last time I was here, I was… unfair."

Aberforth shrugged. "No more unfair than anyone else who's ever known the both of us. I'm not surprised people ask questions. 'Your brother's the greatest wizard who ever lived. What are you doing running this filthy old pub?'"

Horace, who had been wondering exactly that, said, "I'm sure it's none of their business." 

Aberforth shrugged. "I was never much for book learning. I wanted to leave school in fifth year, but Albus wouldn't have it." He paused and took a swig of mead. "And look where that got us. Left him alone with Ariana and…" Aberforth trailed off, and Horace didn't pry. He fancied he had managed to piece together the chief part of the true story. 

"I'm sorry," Horace said sincerely. "I was shocked, completely shocked when I heard—"

"Ah, then I don't suppose he told you any of it."

"No, he didn't." Horace did not yet know how to feel about that—he couldn't tell if it was a lack of trust in him on Albus' part, or simply shame. 

"Well, don't feel too bad. He kept secrets from everyone. Didn't know about Grindelwald either, did you?" 

"No, I didn't." 

Aberforth tipped the bottle into his glass and seemed only then to realize that it was empty. "All right, time to crack open something else." He rose and went behind the bar from whence he withdrew a bottle of port.

"This look good to you?"

"It looks lovely." Horace took a sip. "Where did you get it?"

"Where else? Albus. Everything I've got under the bar was his. That was his idea of… something, I suppose. Leaving all his wine to his brother the barman." Aberforth took a more vigorous swig than Horace would have expected someone to do with port. 

"I won't say you're being unfair to him," Horace said. "You did know him far longer than I did. But perhaps you didn't know him well enough in his later years." 

"Perhaps." They drank in silence for a time. Horace was just becoming used to Aberforth's quiet companionship. 

"You know," Horace said at last, "I've only just realized—we were at school together. You were a couple of years ahead of me, but—"

Aberforth stared at him a moment before realization dawned. "Oh, that's right, I remember you. Little Slytherin, skulking in the shadows."

Horace was not sure he'd ever skulked in his life, but he let the comment pass. "I believe you left school in my fifth year."

Aberfoth's shoulders raised in a dejected shrug. "Can't say I paid much mind to school after Ariana died. It was the summer before my OWL year—only got two of them. But I never wanted a lot of that anyway."

Horace, who had gotten seven OWLs, and been berated for not getting more, nodded. "I'm sure it was hard for you to go back so soon after. Especially—"

"Especially with Albus now free to swan off and do as he pleased?" Aberforth smiled grimly. "At least he was finished with Grindelwald. That's the only good thing about all that." He gave Horace an appraising look. "You were better, I'll at least say that."

All at once, a number of things Aberforth had said to him clicked into place. "Albus and I weren't… Albus and I were just friends."

"Oh." Aberforth's eyes went startlingly wide behind his dirty spectacles and Horace realized it was the first real show of emotion he had seen him display. "Sorry. I thought otherwise all these years."

It was not long after this point that Horace judged it prudent to take his leave.

**

Horace didn't know why he kept going back. Perhaps he felt sorry for Aberforth, who was now utterly alone in the world, save for his goats. Perhaps he didn't want Albus' liquor collection to go entirely to waste. Either way, he found himself trudging down to Hogsmeade on a Friday night in February with no real reason to be doing so. He tried to come up with excuses as he went, but none were coming to mind. 

As it happened, he needn't have bothered, for the pub was shut, the windows dark. Horace craned his neck to look upstairs. Even what he presumed to be Aberforth's private rooms looked dark and empty.

He turned and, cursing his gout, started back up to the school.

The next morning at breakfast, he was surprised to receive a note from a rather harried looking public post owl. He fed it a bit of toast and unfolded the note.

_Security charms said I missed you last night. Took one of the goats to hospital. If you need me, come tonight. Nine o'clock._

__Horace felt strangely nervous as he made the same trek again. How would Aberforth react when he found out that Horace didn't strictly _need_ him? 

"Sorry about that," Aberforth said when Horace shut the door behind him. "She was sick so I wanted her to be seen." He knelt in front of the fire where a goat lay on makeshift bed. He set a pan of milk in front of her.

"I certainly don't mind," Horace said. "Naturally the goats come first."

"What did you need? Got some more acromantula venom?"

"No, not quite." He was still in the process of passing off his existing supply. "I am very grateful for your helping me out, though. No, I only wanted to see if you, well, wanted to have a drink." 

Aberforth looked at him for a beat as though he didn't entirely believe him. "All right. Let's do, then."

It was a touch more awkward than Horace had envisioned, but they managed to get the drinks poured and they managed to talk of subjects other than Albus. In fact, Horace was surprised by how easily they drifted to talk of something else. Horace had not taken Aberforth, a man who had by his own admission, not been an academic, to be so intellectually stimulating, but he was. He proved to be a dab hand at charms and had even invented some of his own.

"Might've run afoul of the law with a few of them," he admitted ruefully, and Horace opted not to press further. 

And he actually even seemed interested when Horace talked about brewing. 

It was quite late when he left and he had drunk quite a lot and somehow, he had agreed to come in a fortnight. And so they passed the spring, meeting every two weeks—sometimes more often, sometimes less often. 

Sometimes, Horace brought marking and that was all he did, sitting at the bar, working on papers while Aberforth cleaned. Clover, for that was the sick goat's name, improved in health and would sometimes sit next to Horace, he head resting on his thigh. He minded less and less.

As spring approached, so did the Quidditch Cup. Horace had been talking of it and his hopes for Slytherin's success for months and Aberforth had listened in his usual gruff manner, giving no indication he actually cared. 

So it was to Horace's surprise that he appeared at the base of the stairs to the Slytherin stands, right before the match was to begin. 

"Got to see if these kids are as good as you say they are," he said, as he dropped into a seat next to Horace. 

"I thought you were a Gryffindor, Mr. Dumbledore," said Ginny Weasley, hovering nearby on her broom.

"Only here by invitation," Aberforth told her, a hint of a smile on his face. "Free butterbeers for your whole house if you kids win."

She grinned and rocketed off. 

"Now _she_ is excellent," Horace said. "Going to play professionally. Already scouted by the Harpies." 

Aberforth only grunted, though he watched the match intently, and his commentary and questions told Horace he had been hanging on to every play.

Much to Horace's dismay and Aberforth's delight, the Gryffindors took the cup, and Aberforth led the entire crowd back to the Hog's Head. Horace found himself pulled along and a group of Slytherins trailed behind, confused to have been drawn into the celebration. Horace was happy to see them all chatting together.

"Well," he said to Aberforth, as they stood together by the bar, "I think things might go better than they did in our day."

"In our day." Aberforth wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "What do you know about our day?"

By dusk, Aberforth had cleared the students off, sometimes forcibly, and they found themselves alone.

"Well," Horace said. "I suppose I'll go." 

Aberforth actually looked disappointed. "Do you have to?" 

"Well," Horace said slowly. "I suppose not."

He slid onto a barstool and Aberforth opened another bottle of port.

"This is it, you know. This is the last of Albus' booze."

"Then I suppose I'll bring it next time," Horace said, as though it was only natural. 

Aberforth's eyebrows shot up. "Thought you were only coming for the drink."

"We'll still have drink." 

"Suppose we will."

They sipped in silence.

"That girl really was good. That Gryffindor girl. I remember her from the battle. Too fast, those kids had to grow up."

"They seem to be doing well. I'm sending out my recommendations for the Granger girl, but she's going to have her pick of positions." 

Aberforth shook his head. "You and your favorites. If I was a kid now, you would never pay me any mind."

Horace could not deny the truth of this. "I should like to think if I had a student who went through what you had gone through, I would do something for him."

"Well, in our day, no one did. Certainly not bloody Dippett."

Horace scowled. "Headmaster Dippett threw me to the wolves my first day. Gryffindor and Slytherin double Potions, fifth years, first thing Monday morning. No curriculum. No guidance. I never liked him."

He was caught quite unawares when Aberforth kissed him. 

Judging by his expression when he drew back, Aberforth had been just as surprised.

"Did you kiss me because I said I didn't like Professor Dippett?"

Aberforth shrugged. "Had to do it sometime." 

The next time he reached for Horace, it seemed much more planned and Horace, too, was quite prepared.


End file.
